Chuck vs the Spiked Eggnog
by Notorious JMG
Summary: This story of dreams and hallucinations is exactly why we don't invite Jeff to Christmas parties. A little bit of Chuck/Sarah, but definitely crack, just like "Spiked Punch"!
1. Chuck vs the Three Spirits

_**Author's note:**__ at the encouragement of a couple of people, I've decided to write another "Chuck has cracked-out dreams" fic. This one takes place around Christmas 2008, or right in the middle of Chapter 12 of _Chuck vs. the Bright Side of Life.

* * *

"Dude, I can't believe we got invited to Chuck's sister's Christmas party."

"I thought you didn't like it when they were called Christmas parties."

"What? What are you talking about?"

"You know, because last year, you made Big Mike call the one at the store the holiday party…"

"Dude, I don't care. I'll call it the Lester-Sucks-Ass Party if it means I get invited back. Have you tasted these Swedish meatballs? I mean, holy crap. The woman's a genius."

"Yeah, well, you want genius, you just watch this."

"Jeff… JEFFREY! What did you just put in the eggnog?"

"Chill, dude. It's just something to make the party a little more… fun."

* * *

Charles Bartowski was a man of no small account. Feared throughout London, he was the scourge of the banking world. His fortune was comparable to that of much greater men than he.

He did not aspire for their greatness. He merely aspired for their money. And ordinarily, he was quite a confident man.

But not tonight. For tonight, he had been visited – visited by the spirit of his long dead business partner, Bryce Larkin. Bryce had warned him of the tribulations that awaited him in eternal Sheol, burdened forever with the chains of Fulcrum.

"You will have one last chance, Chuck," Bryce's ghostly visage had informed him. "Tonight, three spirits shall visit you. Heed their words! Listen to what they say!"

"Three spirits?!" Bartowski wailed in horror. "Can you not just speak your piece? Why must I endure this?"

"Three spirits, Chuck!" Bryce moaned. "CHUUUUUUUCK!"

And so Chuck sat, huddled in the center of his bed, room brightly lit by fire and candles, fearing the arrival of the first spirit. He did not enjoy this prospect at all.

Then the clock struck one. One by one, each of the candles blew out, and the fire flickered and died. The windows banged open, and a gust of wind rushed in.

Borne on that gust of wind was a spirit of far less horrific appearance than Bryce. Indeed, this spirit appeared to be almost an angel – skin of alabaster, hair of amber, eyes of sapphire – a woman greatly to be desired.

"Hello, Chuck," she said. "I am the Ghost of Christmas Past."

Chuck was having difficulty comprehending. "Is that what I should call you?" he asked. "Or do you have a name, spirit?"

She nodded her head. "You may call me Sarah."

"Very well… Sarah."

She indicated the window. "Come quickly, Chuck. We must go. There is much to see and little time to see it in."

The Ghost of Christmas Past extended her hand, and Chuck placed his own in it. He expected a hand of ice, as one would expect of a spirit, but rather, her hand was warm, almost as living flesh.

She guided him to the window, and was about to fly out, when he stopped her. "Wait!" Chuck cried. "It is far to the ground… what if I should fall?"

Sarah looked back at him. "Trust me, Chuck."

And so he did. She flew out the window, trailing him behind. They flew through the night, backward in time, backward, backward. Finally, they landed at a Christmas years before.

"Big Mike's!" Chuck exclaimed in joy. The place where he had gotten his start. The "technological novelty" shop where he and Bryce had been apprentices. And tonight was the annual Christmas party.

Chuck looked in the window, to find Big Mike's old assistant arguing with him. "Must you call it a Christmas party, Big Mike?" Lester asked. "Have you no consideration for my Jewish faith?"

"Young man, when you start paying me money, I will call it whatever you desire. But until that day, this shall be known as BIG MIKE'S CHRISTMAS PARTY!" the larger man boomed.

Chuck smiled. "A good memory, this?" Sarah asked him.

"Oh, of course," he replied. "One of the best."

Then he saw a much younger version of himself, accompanied by a much younger Bryce, come down a set of stairs. "Big Mike!" he heard himself call. "We have some numbers that we wish to discuss with you!"

"Crazy white boys," the older Chuck heard Big Mike mutter under his breath. Then, Big Mike turned to face his two apprentices. "Gentlemen, it is Christmas. I have no desire to speak of numbers, nor should you."

And as Chuck watched, the shop faded from before his sight, replaced by a vision of another Christmas. This could have been any number of Christmases – for there was his sister, Eleanor Faye, and her suitor, Dr. Devin Woodcomb. However, when he watched himself come through the door, accompanied by Jill Tanner, he turned to Sarah.

"Please, not this Christmas," he pleaded. "The memories are far too painful."

Sarah looked at him, kindly but sadly. "You must confront the demons of your past, Chuck."

He watched as he appeared to be so happy with Jill, the woman he had loved. He watched, the memories tearing at his heart, as he confided in his sister his intent to ask for Jill's hand in marriage. Then, when the scene began to shift, he turned toward the spirit, with rage in his eyes.

"Don't you DARE take me there," he shouted.

And yet, she did. He watched, mortified and broken, as he asked Jill for her hand in marriage, and she rejected him, saying that she had found another. One who was kinder, less interested in the things of this world and more in those of love.

"Please, no more," he finally begged Sarah.

That's when everything went dark. He looked up – and he was back in his bedroom. He looked around. She was gone. The scene was gone.

The clock struck two, and his door burst open!

"AWESOME!" a very large man boomed at Chuck. "Greetings, Chuck Bartowski! I am the Ghost of Christmas Present, and it is AWESOME to meet you!"

Chuck stared at the man in disbelief. He had to be at least eight feet tall. He tried to think of something to say, but could come up with nothing better than, "And what should I call you… good spirit?"

The spirit laughed. "Why, you may call me Captain AWESOME!"

Chuck raised an eyebrow. "You're not entirely sane, are you, spirit?"

He laughed again. "Sane? Why, I find sanity to be highly overrated!"

Then, he flung open the window. "Come, Chuck! We have much to see, and so little time in which to see it!"

"Oh, good Lord, here we go again," Chuck muttered, as Captain Awesome dragged him out the window into the night.

This time, though, they did not fly through time. Rather, they flew across London, to a small home on the edge of the city. Captain Awesome landed in front of it, and plopped Chuck before the window.

"Look, and tell me what you see!" he boomed.

Chuck looked through the window. "Why, that's my clerk, Morgan Grimes!" he gasped. "And his wife, Anna, and their children, Jessica, Vicky, and Tim!"

It was clear that they were preparing for Christmas dinner. They seemed so happy – a family built on love. And yet, it rapidly became clear to Chuck that all was not well.

Tim moved listlessly. He walked about with the assistance of a crutch – when he walked, which was rarely. He was quiet, and his face often seemed downcast.

"What is wrong with the child, Tim?" Chuck asked Captain Awesome.

"He is very ill," the spirit informed him, with a somber face. "Morgan has taken him to doctors throughout London, trying to determine what is wrong. However, none of them know, and Morgan cannot afford to take him to Paris, where there is supposedly a doctor who can help him."

"Why did he never tell me about this?" Chuck asked himself angrily.

Though he had aimed the question at himself, the spirit nonetheless replied. "He knows you only as a hard man, Chuck," Captain Awesome said quietly. "He would not expect you to have sympathy for his family, for the plight of his child."

"But I'm not that hard a man!" Chuck protested, turning toward the spirit. "This is a child! No child deserves to suffer in this fashion! All he had to do was tell me!"

Captain Awesome smiled sadly. "And yet, he could not know that. How would he? You're the man who refused to give him Christmas Day off to spend with his family."

Chuck stood, staring at the spirit, his mouth hanging open. "But… but!"

Captain Awesome shook his head. "And it does not improve," he said softly. "I see, not too far in the future, an empty chair, grieving parents, children lost in despair."

"No!" Chuck shouted, shaking his head. "No, that cannot happen! Tell me how to prevent it!"

But even as he spoke, Captain Awesome faded away into the night, leaving only a dark, snow-filled street before Chuck.

That's when he was hit in the head with a snowball. "Hey, Bartowski!" he heard from behind him.

Chuck turned to see a man, slightly taller than himself. Brown hair, a chiseled jaw, wearing a black robe – and carrying a scythe.

He began to tremble. "Are you… are you the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come?"

"Yeah, that's me," the spirit replied sardonically. "You can call me John, though."

John grabbed Chuck's shoulder and forcibly turned him to look back inside the Grimes home. "Look there, bucko," he said. "See what you caused?"

And indeed, it was just as the Ghost of Christmas Present had foretold. An empty chair, Morgan quiet, Anna in tears, Jessica and Vicky angry and aloof. "No," Chuck whispered. "This cannot be!"

"And yet, there it is, sure as you're standing there," John cracked. "Come on, I got something else to show you."

"No!" Chuck shouted. But John reached out and grabbed his wrist – and when his hand came out from under the robe, Chuck saw – no flesh, just bone.

As soon as John's hand touched his wrist, the London street disappeared, to be replaced by a graveyard. "Why are we here?" Chuck asked quietly.

John said nothing, just pointed toward a headstone. Chuck approached it nervously.

When he got close enough to read it, his eyes widened. "Charles Irving Bartowski", it informed him. "1809-1850."

"But… 1850… this is 1849!" Chuck wailed in dismay. "Are you to say that by next Christmas, I will be dead."

John smiled evilly, his eyes beginning to glow. "But, but, this is Christmas yet to come! Surely it can still be changed! I can be a better man!"

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come ignored Chuck's entreaties. Without a word, he guided Chuck forward – and the ground where his tomb was began to sink.

"No!" Chuck cried, as John pushed him inexorably forward. "Please, no!"

But John ignored his cries, and with one final shove, sent Chuck tumbling into the abyss.

"Nooooo!" Chuck screamed, as he fell downward. Then everything went black –

_To be continued…_


	2. Chuck vs Krypton

- and in the amount of time it took for Chuck to blink, the bar was plunged into darkness.

"What the hell?" he asked, surprised. "Have there been power outages like this recently?"

"This is Los Angeles, dude," Morgan replied. "There have been power outages like you wouldn't believe since you've been gone."

Chuck turned and looked outside. "Does that include every car on Figueroa coming to a dead stop?" he asked.

Morgan turned and looked as well. "Okay, now that's weird."

But just as suddenly as the power had gone out, it came back on. The television flickered back on, returning to the cabin of the USAF 777 in flight over the Pacific Coast.

"Sorry about that, folks," Ryan Seacrest said onscreen. "It looks like we lost our feed for a moment there. There was some sort of in-flight emergency up here, I guess we lost power for a moment, but the pilots are saying everything's alright."

The camera panned around the cabin, capturing the shocked expressions on the faces of the reporters and VIPs around Seacrest – and there she was.

Sarah Walker.

Chuck hadn't seen her in years, not since he'd left Los Angeles behind to go home, to try to find answers. But there were no answers – just chunks of rock, blown to smithereens.

Ryan Seacrest was still speaking onscreen. "According to the pilot, we are still go for launch on the first operational test of NASA's new launch vehicle," he said. "As a reminder, this new vehicle is carried to 45,000 feet by either a 777 or an Airbus 330, and it launches from there. This is designed to cut costs per mission by millions of dollars."

That's when the screen started shaking. "Uh, I think we're experiencing a little turbulence," Seacrest said, his face starting to drain of color. Then, the aircraft started shaking violently, Seacrest's eyes went wide –

And the screen cut to the FOX logo, with a "Please stand by" caption.

"Holy shit," Morgan breathed. "Did you see that, Chuck?"

He turned to the stool that Chuck had been sitting on. "Chuck?"

But Chuck was outside, having locked himself in a phone booth. A moment later, the door of the booth burst open –

And a streak of blue and red flashed into the sky, rocketing itself toward the doomed aircraft.

"What was that?!" a lady in the bar asked, seeing the streak.

Morgan raced outside, watching the red and blue streak scream across downtown Los Angeles and high into the sky.

"It's a bird!" one man yelled.

"No, it's a plane!" another yelled back.

But Morgan knew the truth. "No, it's not!" he shouted. "It's Superman! Superman's back!"

And Superman was back indeed. Known to his friends and family as the mild-mannered Nerd Herder Chuck Bartowski, he had reverted to his public image as Superman for the first time in years.

There was a very good reason for that. Forty-five thousand feet above him, a plane was in trouble. And Sarah Walker was on that plane.

It took him less than a minute to reach the plane. It was in worse trouble than he had thought. The launch vehicle had failed to separate from the 777 properly, its main engines had fired, and the 777's modified stabilizer was beginning to collapse.

Chuck got underneath the launch vehicle, bracing his feet against the body of the 777. He pushed with all his strength, and very slowly, the couplings separated, allowing the launch vehicle to break free.

Continuing to push upward, he boosted the launch vehicle until it had reached the stratosphere. At that point, its own power was enough to launch it into orbit.

But all was not well. Chuck turned around to dive back toward the 777, and as he did so, he watched in horror as the 777's damaged tail structure finally disintegrated, sending the aircraft into an uncontrollable spin.

Pressing his arms flat against his body, he dove rapidly toward the doomed aircraft. With a heavy thud, he landed on its right wing. Grasping the leading edge of the wing, he pulled, attempting to muscle the plane out of its spin.

Unfortunately, between the speed at which the plane was spinning and the force of his strength pulling backward on the wing, the wing failed and snapped off, hurtling off into space, taking Chuck with it.

With the loss of the wing, what was left of the 777 began to roll in addition to its spin. Casting the broken wing aside, Chuck dove back toward the aircraft. Planting himself under the left wing root, he pushed upward, trying to stop the roll before going back to controlling the spin.

The roll slowed, but as it did so, the left wing too snapped off, leaving the fuselage of the 777 as basically an aluminum tube filled with human beings, hurtling toward the earth. "For God's sake," Chuck breathed, irritated. "This is getting ridiculous."

Gathering his strength, he breathed deeply and flew back toward the 777's fuselage. Matching its rate of roll, he lined up with the wing spar that ran under the plane – one of its strongest points. Bracing himself there, he pushed his body in the direction opposite the roll.

Slowly but surely, the fuselage stopped rolling, but it was still diving toward the earth at several hundred miles an hour. Chuck pushed upward, and pushed upward some more, but the aircraft was hurtling toward the ground at far too high a speed. As he pushed, he could feel the bottom of the fuselage begin to crumple against his back.

This was not good. Los Angeles was getting bigger and bigger in Chuck's eyes, and if he didn't stop this 777, it was going to be an utter disaster. He couldn't allow that. Not now, not after all that had happened while he had been away.

Using his hands to drag himself down the fuselage, he pulled himself to the nose of the aircraft. Getting in front of the fuselage, he put his hands on the nose, and began trying to fly upward.

The aircraft slowed more, but it was still heading toward Los Angeles like a cruise missile. Chuck looked over his shoulder – and realized that the airplane's ballistic trajectory had it headed directly toward Chavez Ravine. Dodger Stadium lay at the end of the airplane's path.

If the airplane hit Dodger Stadium, there was going to be a gigantic body count. Chavez Ravine would be devastated, and who would be blamed?

Superman.

Well, Chuck wasn't about to allow that. He pushed even harder against the nose of the airplane. The aluminum nose cone began to crumple slightly, but the aircraft continued to slow.

Chuck looked over his shoulder again. The Dodgers and the Giants were on the field, but they were beginning to scatter. People were starting to panic and try to flee the stadium. This had to stop, right now.

He gave the airplane one last almighty shove. The nose cone crumpled completely, but its momentum dropped to practically nothing. He grabbed the fuselage on either side of the cockpit, and very gently, let the 777 settle to the ground. The nose rested right above the pitcher's mound, with the body stretching almost completely across the outfield.

The people in the stands looked on in shock. Then one began to clap, then two, then ten, then a thousand, and before Chuck realized it, Superman was receiving a standing ovation.

Slightly embarrassed, Chuck waved and nodded to the crowd, before flying around to the side hatch of the aircraft. Grabbing it by the sides, he popped it off, and stepped inside the cabin.

Every passenger was strapped into their seat, catatonic. There were a few gasps of surprise when they realized who it was.

Ryan Seacrest looked up at him in amazement. "Holy crap," he whispered. "You're really back!"

Chuck smiled and nodded. He looked up at the people onboard the aircraft. "I hope this experience hasn't put any of you off of flying," he began, trying not to smile. "Statistically speaking, it's still by far the safest way to travel."

There were nervous giggles throughout the aircraft, but one didn't laugh. The one who was still staring at him in shock.

Chuck turned and made eye contact with her. Sarah Walker. Her eyes were wide, her mouth hanging open. Chuck wanted to say something, but suddenly, his mouth had gone completely dry and his mind blank.

So, he just nodded, said, "Ma'am," and leapt out the door. He streaked upwards, rocketing out into space, where everything faded to black –

_To be continued…_


	3. Chuck vs the Dilithium Crystals

- and the blackness receded as the Bird of Prey blasted out of its time warp, streaking toward Earth at high warp speed, but decelerating rapidly.

"What's our location?" Chuck asked groggily, coming out of the trance he seemed to have fallen into.

There was nothing for a moment, and then he heard Bryce quietly say, "Earth. Judging from the atmospheric pollution content, I'd say we've arrived somewhere in the late twentieth century."

Chuck looked around the bridge. Aside from Bryce, the rest of the crew still seemed to be in something of a trance – Jeff at the communications station, Lester manning weapons, Anna at the helm. Morgan stood behind Chuck, his eyes glazed over.

"Yo!" Chuck shouted. "Good morning, San Francisco!"

The other four bridge crew snapped out of it. "Uh, sorry about that, sir," Anna apologized. "I'm aiming for San Francisco."

"Set us down in Golden Gate Park," Chuck ordered. "And Lester, do me a favor and activate the cloaking device."

"_Engineering to bridge!_" The panicked voice of Major John Casey rang out over the intercom.

"This is the bridge."

"_Admiral, you'd better get down here, right now!_"

Chuck looked at Bryce. Bryce met Chuck's worried expression with, as always, a look of logical calm. "Bryce, you're with me."

When the two men arrived in engineering, Casey looked like he was just about to have an aneurysm. "We've got a serious problem, folks. The dilithium crystals – well, they couldn't handle the strain of the time travel. They're decrystallizing."

Chuck's jaw dropped. "Shit!"

"We don't have the technology to re-crystallize them, either," Casey told him. "Even in our century, the equipment required is dangerous to use."

Chuck looked at Bryce. "Ideas?"

Bryce nodded his head. "Actually, yes. There is a possible twentieth century method for, if not recrystallizing the dilithium, then at the very least, renewing it enough to return us to the twenty-third century."

Chuck narrowed his eyes. "Explain."

"During the twentieth century, several navies undertook a dubious flirtation with nuclear power for their sea-going vessels. The United States Navy was one of those, and they generally had at least one nuclear powered vessel docked in San Francisco Bay.

"Their reactors were poorly shielded by our standards, and tended to leak large amounts of alpha radiation, which, while fairly harmless to humans, would be ideal for energizing the dilithium crystals to a point where they will stop decaying."

Chuck nodded approvingly. "Casey? What do you think?"

Casey shrugged. "It's certainly not a bad idea, but I think it's a crapshoot at best. I'll put together a collector, but you guys are gonna have to find me a ship."

He turned back to the dilithium crystals, but then stopped. "One more thing. These dilithium crystals are going to have to have enough energy to not just get us back to the 23rd century, but first beam up those whales and then have enough power to get us out of Earth's gravity well with them on board. Will this radiation experiment provide enough power for that, Bryce?"

Bryce cocked an eyebrow. "I cannot say for sure. I have only hypothetical models to work with."

"Great," Casey muttered, walking off. Chuck wasn't sure, but he thought he might've overheard something along the lines of _goddamn Vulcan logic_.

"Again with the Vulcan logic bit," Bryce said. "Everybody seems to have forgotten that I am half human and that I was raised in Connecticut."

"Yeah, but Bryce, when they took your memories out of Morgan's head and put them back in yours, they seem to have forgotten to put your emotions back."

Bryce shook his head. "Irrelevant. Emotionalism is illogical."

Chuck threw his hands up in the air. "Whatever."

When they returned to the bridge, Chuck began to hand out assignments. "Alright, here's the deal," he said. "Lester and Jeff, your mission is to locate a US Navy nuclear-powered ship. You'll be beamed in, and you'll be collecting alpha radiation with a collector Major Casey provides you.

"Anna and Morgan – your mission is to work with Major Casey, locate us the supplies to build a whale tank, and build us that tank."

"Yes sir," Anna responded, while Morgan breathed, "Oh, joy."

"Bryce and I will locate our whales. Any questions?"

There were none. "Alright, let's head out," Chuck said. "Everyone remember where we parked."

* * *

Four hours later, everybody had already managed some level of success at their mission – everybody except for Chuck and Bryce. Jeff and Lester had managed to find a nuclear-powered ship – the USS _Enterprise_, no less – in San Francisco Bay. Casey and Morgan had found a plastics company that could manufacture what they needed, and Anna had found a helicopter with which to transport it.

Of course, when Chuck asked Casey how exactly he was paying for the material, Casey had sort of hemmed and hawed before finally admitting that he turned over the formula for transparent aluminum. Bryce's eyebrows just about crawled off the top of his forehead when he heard that.

"Casey, you can't do that!" Chuck exploded. "You might be changing the future!"

"Chuck, he's the guy who invents it!" Casey shot back. "So he has it a couple years early! So what?! It's not like he has the technology to manufacture it right now!"

Chuck had just sighed in disgust and closed his communicator. "So, it's just us, still trying to find a couple of whales," he sighed.

"Well, sir, I believe we can have Jeff track any whale songs coming from the city, triangulate their position, and – what?"

Chuck had smacked Bryce on the shoulder, and was pointing wordlessly at the side of a bus. "Or, we could just do that," Bryce said.

_SEE GEORGE AND GRACIE AT THE SAUSALITO MARINE INSTITUTE! _the sign proclaimed. Next to their names was a picture of, yes indeed, two humpback whales.

"Let's go to Sausalito," Chuck said.

Half an hour later, they were at the Sausalito Marine Institute. Walking in the front door, Chuck dropped a bill into the box that said "Donations Please." Knowing very little about the currency of 1986 America, he hoped that the one with the "5" on it wasn't too much or too little.

_Tours form here every 30 minutes_, a sign informed him and Bryce. "What say we join the tour, recon the place?" Chuck suggested.

"Not a bad idea," Bryce agreed.

They joined a group of about ten people waiting on benches. Five minutes later, a door that said "Tours Only" opened, and a stunning blonde woman walked out.

Chuck's eyes widened when he saw her, and he stood up quickly. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and a body to kill for. He realized that even Bryce was taking notice, and Bryce NEVER took notice except for that one time every seven years.

"Good afternoon," she said. "I'm Doctor Sarah Walker, associate director of wildlife studies for the Sausalito Marine Institute. I'll just head off any wise remarks right now – yes, I really am a marine biologist and NOT a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model."

A ripple of laughter ran through the small group. Chuck didn't really get the joke, but something about the way she said it made him smile.

"Ordinarily, one of our tour guides would give the tour, but we had a little bit of an accident involving a staircase and a hangover this morning, so I'm filling in!" she continued. "If you'll follow me, we've got some pretty incredible things to see."

Over the next forty minutes, Chuck learned more about marine mammalian life than he could've ever hoped to learn in the 23rd century, when most species were extinct. He also saw some pretty gruesome evidence of why the species had gone extinct. "Horrifying," Bryce noted calmly.

Then, Dr. Walker led the group outside onto what resembled a pool deck – except the pool was enormous, and clearly had salt water in it – along with two humpback whales. One of them surfaced and exhaled, sending up from its blowhole a plume of vapor which then rained down on the crowd.

"This is perfect, Bryce," Chuck murmured. "We beam up the whales, hit the gas for the 23rd century, avert the destruction of Earth – not a bad day's work, huh?"

There was no answer. "Bryce?"

Chuck turned around. There was no sign of Bryce – until he heard Dr. Walker yell, "What the HELL?!"

Chuck closed his eyes. "Oh please God no."

He ran to the edge of the tank, just in time to see Bryce hauling himself out. "HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?" he yelled simultaneously with Dr. Walker.

She whirled to face him. "Do you know him?" she demanded.

"Unfortunately," Chuck admitted. He turned to Bryce. "What the hell was that all about?"

"I was simply attempting to communicate, Admiral."

Chuck smacked his hand against his forehead. "Stop calling me Admiral, dammit!"

"I did not call you Admiral Dammit."

Sarah Walker looked between the two of them. "The two of you have about ten seconds to explain what's going on before I call the police."

Bryce looked at Dr. Walker. "Gracie is pregnant."

Sarah's eyes widened, and she punched Bryce, sending him flying back into the tank. "Okay, Admiral Dammit," she hissed, "you start explaining, or you join your friend the freak in the tub."

Her blue eyes pierced into Chuck, and all at once, he felt an overwhelming urge to tell her the truth, ever last ounce of it, and before he even realized what he was doing, it was spilling out of him like word vomit. "We're from the twenty-third century," he blurted. "We came because we have to get two humpback whales, because they're extinct in our time, and the planet is about to be destroyed by some alien life form that seems to be pissed off about the fact that they're gone. Bryce, my friend, he's half alien, and he can read minds by doing some sort of mind meld thing, and I don't think he was trying to do anything else."

Bryce had hauled himself out of the pool again. "That is correct, Admiral," he confirmed.

Dr. Walker's eyes had gone wide as plates, and her jaw was just hanging open. She stood there for a moment, speechless, before she finally turned to the rest of the group. "Uh… uh, I'm sorry, but we're going to have to cut the tour off early," she said, much to their disappointment. "Please feel free to show yourselves around the remainder of the institute, and if you wish to join the next tour, there should be another one forming in about twenty minutes."

As the group dispersed, she turned to Chuck. "I don't know why," she began, "because that's the biggest bullshit story I've heard in my entire life, and I've heard some good ones, but for some reason… I believe you."

She couldn't have shocked Chuck more if she'd stripped naked right there. "I'm sorry?" he asked in disbelief. "You BELIEVE me?"

Sarah shrugged. "What can I say?"

"Hot damn," Chuck whispered with a grin. He whipped out his communicator and opened it. "Bartowski to Casey," he said. "Casey, please come in."

"Yeah, what is it?" he heard the irritable voice of his chief engineer say. "We're a little busy renewing some dilithium crystals here."

"So that mission was successful, then?"

"Yeah, Jeff fell and cracked his head pretty good. Fortunately, he doesn't really have much of a brain, otherwise it would've been a problem."

Chuck heard Jeff's voice come through faintly in the background. "I'm fine, Adm'ral!"

Chuck narrowed his eyes. "Casey, he sounds drunk."

"Morgan liquored him up pretty good. The Klingon painkillers we have are crap."

"Alright, whatever. We've got a pair of whales. We have three humans and two whales to beam up."

Casey snorted. "Dream on… sir. I have a transporter range of about 100 feet right now. You're gonna have to be right outside the ship for me to beam you in, and we're gonna have to be right over those whales to beam them up. Tank's ready, but the transporters are… well… not so good."

"Hell," Chuck muttered. "Alright. I'll be there as soon as possible."

He looked at Dr. Walker. "Do you have a car or something?"

She was staring at him again. "Uh, yeah… uh, three to beam up… what does that mean?"

"Transporters," Chuck explained. "They move matter from place to place, and that's the number of people I needed beamed up."

"Why three?"

She had Chuck there. "Um… well, I guess I thought you might like to come with us. After all, you do seem to believe us, and, um, we're gonna need somebody who knows what to do with these things."

And then she actually smiled. "Twenty-third century, huh? That could be fun."

Forty minutes later, her Blazer skidded to a stop in Golden Gate Park. "Let's go!" Chuck shouted, as they bailed from the truck. He ran toward where he thought he remembered the Bird of Prey being – and was knocked off his feet as he ran smack into the side of it.

Painfully, he got back to his feet. "Found it!" he called weakly, waving to Bryce and Sarah, who jogged over – much more slowly – to join him.

When they were next to him, he opened his communicator again. "Bartowski to Casey," he said. "Three to beam up."

"Oh, holy shit!" Sarah Walker exclaimed in surprise as the transporter beam began to dissolve her form. Chuck grinned and closed his eyes as the cool wash of the transporter beam dissolved to blackness –

_To be continued…_

* * *

_**Author's Note:** for those of you who may not have recognized this chapter, it's a spoof of _Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home_, which remains to this date unquestionably the funniest and most popular of the _Star Trek _films. For character comparison, Chuck is Admiral James T. Kirk, Bryce is Captain Spock, Morgan is Dr. McCoy, Jeff is Uhura, Lester is Chekov, Anna is Mr. Sulu, and Casey is Scotty._


	4. Chuck vs the Casino

- and the world momentarily went black as Chuck blinked in surprise at Casey's rather explosive answer.

"You're outta your goddamn minds!" Casey exclaimed vehemently, thrusting his hands outward. "Seriously! You two have gone directly around the bend, past Hoover Dam, and you're floating down the Colorado River with no rudder!"

Chuck looked over at Sarah, who shrugged. "I told you that's what he was gonna say," she said.

"You know what, he's right," Chuck admitted. "Casey, you're right. I'm sorry we wasted your time."

Casey waved his hands in the air furiously. "Nobody said you were wasting my time! I just said you were out of your goddamn minds! I want to know exactly what the two of you were thinking when you came up with this half-cocked plan to rip off a casino!"

Chuck shrugged. "Well, it's never been done before."

"Hah!" Casey laughed. "You should know better than that, Captain Intersect!"

"What do you mean?" Chuck asked, confused.

"Let me give you some mental stimuli," Casey snarked. "Bronze medal. The Horseshoe, 1954."

Chuck's eyes rolled back in his head as a series of images flashed before his eyes. A lockbox. A scrawny-looking man running with said lockbox. Said man being tackled. Chips and cash flying everywhere.

"Doug Ross grabbed a lockbox at the Horseshoe, attempted to escape. He was stopped and apprehended," Chuck said.

"Exactly," Casey said with a smile, nodding his head. "Number two. The Flamingo, 1971."

Chuck's mind was assaulted again. A man. Definitely a hippie. Duffel bag clutched to his chest. Daylight plays on his face before a security guard smashes him in the nose with a nightstick. "Spirit in the Sky" incongruously plays in Chuck's head.

"Tyler Durden," Chuck gasped. "Tried to rob the Flamingo. Actually tasted fresh oxygen. Of course, he was breathing out of a tube for the next six months."

"God damn hippie," Casey grumbled. "And the champion. Caesar's Palace, 1987."

The Intersect went crazy one final time. A man in a horrible leisure suit on the driveway out front of Caesar's Palace, arms full of cash, an unlit cigar clenched between his teeth. Armed security guards yelling at him to freeze. Armed security guards firing their weapons. The man falls, a cloud of cash flying into the air.

"Will Hunting," Chuck said. "Closest any man has ever come to robbing a Las Vegas casino. He came, he grabbed…"

"They conquered," Casey finished the sentence for him.

The older man looked at Chuck and Sarah. "Do you understand the complications in robbing a Las Vegas casino? There's cameras. There's sensors. There's enough armed personnel to occupy Paris."

Chuck raised an eyebrow at that one. "Okay, bad example," Casey allowed. "But still, even if you manage to get out the front door – you're still in the middle of the fucking desert! Have you two geniuses even considered that?!"

Chuck looked at Casey, and then over at Sarah. "You're right," Sarah said. "Our eyes were bigger than our stomachs. We'd just get ourselves in over our heads."

"Thanks for lunch, Casey," Chuck said, as he stood.

"No problem, guys," Casey said. "Listen, we go way back, and I still owe you, for the thing, with the guy, in the place…"

"Yeah, I always wanted to be kidnapped and taken to Utah," Chuck cracked.

Casey looked up at him strangely. "Utah? I thought it was Belize."

Sarah looked at them both. "You know, it was Belize, but for some reason, I thought it was Utah for a moment too."

"Strange," Chuck said, but continued to walk away. He and Sarah had almost reached the back door of Casey's house when Casey called, "Listen, just which casinos were you mindjobs planning on hitting?"

Sarah turned around. "Uh, the Mirage, the Bellagio…"

"The MGM Grand," Chuck finished.

Casey's fork clattered to his plate. "Those are Bryce Larkin's casinos!" he called, standing up and quickly crossing the back patio. "Just what do you guys have against Bryce Larkin?"

Chuck smiled. "I think the more important question is what do you have against him, Casey?"

"He stabbed me in the back. He betrayed everything I stood for," Casey growled.

Chuck looked at Sarah questioningly. She smiled and nodded her head slightly.

"But if you're gonna rob Bryce Larkin, you better know," Casey continued, "you think you've got him down, and he'll bounce right back up again. I've seen it happen. Twice. He'll come at you like none other. He'll go after you, your family. You know, Vegas, it used to be civilized. You'd hit a guy, he'd wack you. Boom. Done.

"Not Bryce Larkin. He kills you, and then he goes to work on you."

Chuck nodded. "Well, then we'll be careful."

Casey shook his head. "Seriously, this is lunacy. No joke, you're gonna need a Boesky, a Jim Brown, a Miss Daisy, two Jethros, a Leon Spinks, and the biggest Ella Fitzgerald of ALL TIME to pull this off. You're looking at minimum ten men."

Chuck smiled. "We were thinking eleven, but you're right on the same line of thought as us."

Casey grimaced. "Exactly what lunatics you two have in mind for this job?"

"Well, our inside man is Big Mike," Chuck began. "He recently developed a bad case of… uh, whatever. He's put in for a transfer from New Jersey to a warmer climate. But, since Big Mike can no longer get past the gaming commission, he'll be known as Mr. Mark Christopher Lawrence."

"Catchy name," Casey said. "Too catchy. Tell him to drop the Christopher."

"He's not gonna like that," Sarah warned.

"Tough. Tell him he's Mark Lawrence or I name him."

Chuck suppressed a smile at the thought of Casey thinking up a new name for the six-foot-four, three hundred fifty pound black man. "So that's our inside man," he repeated. "Electronics, we were thinking Jill Tanner."

"She's dead," Sarah interrupted.

Chuck looked over at her, shocked. "No shit! On a job?"

"Skin cancer," Sarah replied. "Hit the tanning booths a bit too much."

"You send flowers?"

"Dated her ex for a while…"

Chuck literally laughed out loud at that one. "Okay, how about Morgan Grimes then?"

"He's working for the feds, last I heard," Casey said. "I mean, you could give him a call…"

"I'm sure I can pull a few strings," Chuck replied. "He owes me. Everything, really."

"Drivers are Jeff and Lester," Sarah continued.

"What, the Mormon twins?" Casey snorted derisively.

Chuck frowned. "Number one, they're barely Mormon, and number two, I'd hardly call them twins. Jeff's a six-foot-two alcoholic white man, and Lester's a five-foot-six Indian guy. They just happen to have the same birth date, and just happened to be adopted by the same parents."

"From what we hear, though, they're having a little trouble filling the time," Sarah interjected. "Seems they got arrested a couple weeks back for staging a drag race in the middle of Provo."

Casey squinted his eyes. "Provo? What the hell?"

"Apparently, it was a remote control truck against a lifted four-by-four," Chuck finished. "I guess the Provo police weren't too pleased about the distraction it caused."

Casey sighed. "Okay, so you've got your inside man, your electronics, and your drivers. What about a lifter? And your Boesky?"

"Two for the price of one," Chuck replied. "I figure, I get my sister and her husband – Devin and Ellie Woodcomb – out here. She could lift Nathan Fillion's wallet out of his tightest pair of leather pants, and Devin can pass himself off as just about anybody you want – as long as that individual is 'awesome'," he added, rolling his eyes.

"Our greaseman is Anna Wu," Sarah continued. "She's actually Morgan Grimes girlfriend. I have it on good authority that she is… well, Morgan's exact terminology was 'surprisingly flexible'."

Chuck groaned in horror. "Dear sweet Lord, I really did NOT need to know that," he grumbled.

Sarah smiled. "You know I say those things intentionally, right?"

"I bet you do…"

"Alright, alright," Casey said irritably. "Moving on. Demolitions?"

"No question," Chuck replied. "We get Lou. She's still apparently friendly with her ex, Stavros Demetrios –"

"The international financier?"

"Yeah, and heavy grade arms dealer," Sarah finished. "We figure she greases his palm with three or four hundred, we get the explosives and arms we need, nobody's the wiser."

"Now, you figure the total take on this…"

"Well," Chuck replied, "as I'm sure you're aware, the policy in Bryce Larkin's casinos is to have enough cash in the cage to cover every chip on the floor at any given moment. On a weeknight, that's fifteen million dollars. On a Saturday night, you're looking at closer to eighty million."

He grinned, a gleam appearing in his eyes. "But on a fight night, like the night of the Mayweather-De La Hoya fight, three weeks from tonight, you're looking at over one hundred fifty million, without breaking a sweat."

Casey's eyebrows climbed, and he whistled. "And you think you're gonna walk out of there with that?"

Chuck nodded.

"So, I guess the final question is, who's your financier?"

Chuck and Sarah looked at each other. "Well… that's why we came to talk to you."

Casey looked at them for a moment, shocked. Finally, he said, "I need something to drink. Can we take this discussion inside?"

Chuck and Sarah nodded, and got up to follow him into the house. He opened the door, and they headed inside. After the bright sunlight, the dim light of the house seemed almost pitch black –

_To be continued…_

* * *

_**Author's note:**__ You may have noticed a slight discrepancy between this chapter and _Ocean's 11_. You may remember that in the movie, Danny Ocean states that Nevada state law requires all chips in play on a casino floor to be covered by cash on hand. This is actually not a law at all. Therefore, I decided to change that plot point just a wee bit._


	5. Chuck vs the TPS Report

"Chuck?"

- and the blackness receded as Chuck Bartowski lifted his head from where it lay on his arm, flat on his desk. Looking up, he saw John Casey leaning against the doorway of his cubicle.

"What's happening, Chuck," Casey drawled. "Listen, we need to have a little… TALK about your TPS reports."

Chuck looked at Casey in confusion. "Uh, I made sure I got them in on time… wait, this is about the coversheet, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Casey continued. "Listen, we're putting the new coversheet on all TPS reports now… did you get that memo?"

"I did," Chuck said. "I just… I forgot this time. It won't happen again."

"Yeah. Well, you just go ahead and make sure you put that coversheet on all your TPS reports from now on, okay? I'll make sure you get a copy of that memo."

"Wait, I've got the…" Chuck's voice trailed off as Casey walked away. "…memo right here."

Chuck sighed. This job was horrible. Whose bass-ackward idea had it been to put just two digits for the year on bank software, anyway? Were they SO pessimistic back in the sixties that they thought the world was going to end in a cloud of nuclear hellfire before January 1st, 2000?

With another sigh, he hit the escape button on his keyboard, killing the screensaver. It was a nice screensaver, too – various poses of Carmen Electra in as little clothing as he could get away with and stay within company policy.

And yet, Carmen faded away to reveal… a stupid Excel spreadsheet that went with his daily TPS report.

Putting a hand to his forehead, he slowly started copying data from the page on his desk into the spreadsheet… only to be distracted by the sound of a radio from the next cubicle over.

He sighed yet again. Standing up, he looked over the top of the cubicle. "Bryce? Hey, Bryce?"

The paranoid eyes of Bryce Larkin flicked up toward Chuck. "Bryce, can you do me a favor and turn the radio down?"

"But… but… I told Mr. Lumbergh that if Anna can listen to her Walkman while she's filing, I should be allowed to listen to my radio at a reasonable volume between certain hours…"

"No, Bryce, I understand. I'm just asking, as a personal favor?"

"But Mr. Lumbergh has said that I can listen to my radio at a reasonable volume between certain hours…"

Chuck rolled his eyes. There was just no dealing with Bryce some days. With his fourth sigh in five minutes, he slumped back down in his chair – just in time for Louisa Beckman to walk up.

"Good morning, Chuck," she greeted him. "What's happening?"

"Good morning, Louisa," he said, trying to suppress a groan, knowing what she was about to say.

"We need to talk about your TPS reports," she said.

"Yeah," Chuck said. "Listen, Casey already talked to me about it, and –"

"Yeah," Beckman interrupted him. "Did you get that memo?"

Chuck was doing his best not to start beating his head against his desk. "Yes. I got the memo. And I understand the policy. I just forgot this time, that's all. It won't happen again. And really, since I've taken care of it, it's not even a problem any more."

Beckman nodded. "Yeah," she said. "It's just that we're putting new coversheets on all the TPS reports bef-"

Chuck couldn't take it anymore. He stood up and just started walking away from his cubicle. He almost ran over Anna as she walked out of her cubicle.

"Uh-oh," she squeaked. "Looks like somebody has a case of the Mondays!"

Chuck literally growled at her and kept stomping toward the engineers' section. "PC load letter?!" he heard Morgan shouting as he approached. "What the FUCK does that mean?!"

"Morning, fellas," Chuck said, rounding the corner into the double-wide cubicle that Morgan shared with Lester. "You guys wanna get out of here, go get some coffee or something?"

"Dude," Lester said, looking at Chuck strangely. "It's only like, 9:30."

"I know, I know," Chuck groaned. "I just gotta get out of here. Casey and Beckman have been all up on my ass about my TPS reports –"

"Yeah, dude, you gotta remember those coversheets," Morgan admonished him.

Chuck glared at Morgan. "I will end you."

Morgan's eyes went wide. "So, how 'bout that coffee, Chuck?"

* * *

Ten minutes later, they were seated at Tchotchke's, waiting for their coffee. "Oh, Jesus Christ," Lester groaned when Scooter approached them.

Scooter was their least favorite server, and yet he always seemed to end up being the guy who served them. "Howdy, fellas!" he said cheerfully as he approached. "Is it just gonna be the coffee this morning, or would you like to go for some French toast fingers, or some fiesta mini burritos."

Chuck looked Scooter in the eyes. "Scooter. Coffee. NOW."

"Yes, sir, comin' right up!" responded the ever unflappable server.

Morgan sighed. "Why can't we ever get HER as our server?"

Chuck followed his gaze. "Yeah," he agreed, looking over at the blonde. She appeared to be in the middle of an argument with her boss – but she was still hot.

"What do you think the chances of one of us with her would be?" Lester asked.

"Depends on if you're talking about the chances of one of the three of us, or the chances of one of the two of you," Chuck cracked.

Lester looked hurt. "Alright, Mr. Big Shot, you think your chances are so much better than ours, why don't you go ask her out?"

Chuck's eyes widened. "Dude, I was just joking."

Morgan got in on it too. "No, seriously. Go ask her out, dude."

Chuck looked at his two friends. Both of their faces had very serious expressions on them. "Alright, dammit, I will," he said determinedly, getting up from the booth.

"He is gonna crash and BUUUUURN," Lester said in a low voice as Chuck walked away.

* * *

A certain amount of trepidation filled Chuck Bartowski as he approached the host stand. "Uh, hi," he said nervously as he walked up.

The blonde looked up. "Uh, good morning," she said. "Have you been helped yet?"

"Yeah, actually…" He looked at her nametag. "Sarah. I wanted to ask you what you were doing for lunch."

She looked at him, and then looked at the lunch specials board. "Uh, well, it looks like we have the meatloaf plate, and, uh, a chicken thing, and, well, it's all posted right here…"

Chuck smiled, feeling a little less nervous. "No, that's not what I meant. I meant, what are you, personally, doing for lunch, because I think I'd like it if you'd go to lunch with me."

Her eyes widened. "Oh… I'm not… I'm not sure I'm allowed to do that."

Chuck shrugged. That wasn't a NO! "Okay," he said, "well, I tell you what. At 1:00, I'll be next door. If you want to join me, great. If not, that's cool, too."

"Okay," she replied. He turned and was walking away, when she said, "Hey!"

He turned around. "What's your name?"

"Chuck," he replied. "Chuck Bartowski."

"Okay, Chuck… um, by next door, do you mean Chili's or Flingers?"

"Flingers," Chuck replied, a smile slowly creeping onto his face.

* * *

Lester and Morgan watched as Chuck slowly approached the stand. "This is gonna be great," Lester practically cackled.

Morgan provided a running commentary for Chuck and what he imagined the girl's high-pitched voice to be.

"Uh, hi, my name's Chuck."

"Hi, Chuck, nice to meet you!"

"Uh, listen, I'm lame, and my friends don't think I can ask you out."

"They're probably right."

"That's kinda harsh, babe."

"Don't call me babe!"

Morgan began to laugh as Chuck turned to walk away from the woman, but stopped when he turned back around – and his jaw fell open when he saw Chuck smile.

"No WAY," he breathed, as Chuck headed back toward the table, smiling.

"Well, gentlemen, I do believe I have a lunch date!"

* * *

Chuck spent the next two and a half hours trying not to lose his mind. At ten minutes to one, he found himself on the phone with Bryce.

"I don't care if they lay me off, because I told, I told Casey that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I'm quitting, I'm going to quit! And, I told Beckman too, because they've moved my desk four times already this year, and I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels, and they were married –"

Chuck held the phone away from his ear. What the hell was Bryce babbling on about?

"- but then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline, my red Swingline stapler, because it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler –"

"Okay, Bryce, okay," Chuck said, trying to end the conversation.

"No, it's not okay," Bryce continued, "because if they take my stapler, then I'll set the building on fire –"

"THAT'S GREAT," Chuck declared loudly. "I gotta go, Bryce, okay? Bye."

And he hung up the phone before Bryce could get another word in edgewise. Seeking out John Casey, he went in the opposite direction, sneaking out the side door.

At 1:01, he walked into the lobby of Flingers – and who should be waiting for him but Sarah. "You actually came!" he said in surprise.

She nodded. "I'm really not sure why I'm here," she said. "I'm not sure I'm even allowed to wear this –" she indicated her Tchotchke's uniform "- in here."

"I wouldn't worry too much about it," Chuck informed her.

A moment later, they were seated at a table. "So, tell me a little bit about yourself, Chuck Bartowksi."

"Well, I work across the street, over at Initech… we're working on the fix for the Y2K thing…"

"You mean, where all the computers only have a two digit year, and everybody's afraid that they're all gonna think it's 1900?"

"That's the one," Chuck confirmed, nodding his head. "Anyway, it's a sucky job, and I work with some weird people, and I think… I think I'm gonna stop going."

Sarah's eyes widened. "Stop going."

"Yeah," Chuck said. "I'm kinda tired of everything that goes on there."

She laughed. "How are you gonna pay things like rent and car payments."

"Don't so much enjoy those, either," Chuck shot back. "I think I'm gonna stop those as well."

A smile was forming on Sarah's face. She was clearly amused. "What are you gonna do with all that free time?"

"Well, I thought I'd take you out to dinner," he said, clearly serious. "And then, I thought maybe we could go back to my place and watch some kung fu."

The smile disappeared from her face. "I love kung fu," she breathed.

Chuck smiled now. "Channel 27?" he asked.

"Seriously," Sarah said. "But we should maybe think about lunch first."

* * *

Ten hours later, Chuck lay in his bed. Sarah had fallen asleep beside him, curled up against his side. Kung fu played quietly on the TV, and their clothes littered the floor next to his bed.

He smiled and turned off the light. "Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta," he breathed as the darkness enveloped him –

_To be continued…_


	6. Chuck vs Roxanne

_**Author's note:**__ So yeah, this chapter – not so funny. I meant for it to be amusing, but it didn't really turn out that way._

* * *

- and the blackness vanished.

The doors were thrown open as the Devin strode into the room. The harsh light of day nearly blinded the occupants.

When he spoke, it was with the accent that always shocked people – the accent of an Argentinean, coming forth from the mouth of a man who looked quite Germanic. But it was not that highly an uncommon thing.

"Never fall in love with a woman who sells herself, Chuck. It always ends BAD!"

Chuck nearly jumped out of his chair when Devin yelled. He had spent the last two hours sitting there, practically inconsolable, so the piercing shout was like a hammer beating on his head.

A dead silence filled the room. Somebody scraped a chair across the floor, the noise echoing throughout the hall. Chuck looked around the room – the orchestra, preparing to rehearse, shocked into silence, the actors staring in fear, and yes, a little bit of awe at Devin.

And yet, all Chuck could think about was Sarah.

"We have a dance!" Devin announced, as he came down the stairs to the main stage. "In the brothels of Buenos Aires."

He snapped his fingers, and Casey played an octave chord on the poorly tuned piano backstage. Devin continued to march across the stage, his boots echoing on the polished wood. A violinist began to play out a section of his part from one of the dance numbers.

"It tells a story," Devin continued, as the piano and the violin began to play the same section of the music. "A prostitute –"

He indicated Ellie, and a spotlight flashed onto her. She looked shocked, to say the least, and nervous laughter filled the room. Joining in the laughter, Ellie descended to the stage and began to cross to Devin.

The music grew more intense. Chuck had risen from his chair, and was crossing backstage, but Devin wasn't done. "And a man!" he called out. "A man… who falls in love."

He approached Ellie. She turned her back to him, as the violinist began a tremolo on high E. Casey began to rumble an appoggiatura in the lowest octave of the piano's registers, while a viola joined in with a descending cadence.

Devin silently counted down from four with his fingers in the air, and upon hitting zero, he stomped his boot on the floor. Ellie turned to face him, and the strings began to play a song that sounded tantalizingly familiar – but Chuck couldn't quite place it.

"FIRST!" Devin shouted out. "There is desire!"

He stepped to Ellie, and drew her to him, as the beat of a tango began to fill the air. The two maneuvered around each other, drawing closer, closer, and then pulling away.

"THEN!" Devin called, and then dropped his voice to a whisper. "Passion…"

Ellie wrapped her body around Devin's, but then her eyes opened, and she looked over Devin's shoulder. Making eye contact with Morgan, she reached her hand out to him, and gave him a "come hither" gesture.

Morgan's jaw just about hit the floor.

Devin's head snapped to his left, eyes widening. "THEN! SUSPICION!"

He grabbed Ellie's wrist, as Morgan advanced onto the dance floor toward her. "JEALOUSY, ANGER, BETRAYAL!"

Devin spun Ellie around in a circle, grabbing her by her waist and dipping her nearly to the floor. Then, grabbing her by the wrists, he pulled her up until they were almost touching – but not quite.

"When love is for the highest bidder," he growled, "there can be no trust. Without trust, THERE IS NO LOVE!"

Ellie slid to the floor, but Devin still had her right wrist gripped firmly in his hand. "JEALOUSY!" he announced loudly. "Yes, JEALOUSY! It will drive you… MAD!"

He flipped Ellie's wrist out of his hand, and Morgan stepped forward to take Devin's place. Devin walked a few steps away, then turned back and began to sing:

"ROXANNE!" And there it was. Chuck KNEW he knew the song… but Devin couldn't be singing anything worse.

"You don't have to put on that red light!" As Devin watched Ellie tango with Morgan, Chuck could see the careful control on his face. He knew that it was not reflected on his own.

Sarah was not with him. Sarah was off with Bryce. Doing God knew what. And all for the sake of the god damned MOULIN ROUGE.

"Walk the streets for money," Devin sang, as Casey approached Ellie from another angle, having abandoned the piano. "You don't care if it is wrong or if it is right!"

Ellie was pushed away by Morgan, and slid into Casey's arms. "Roxanne!" Devin called out. Casey pulled Ellie close to him, a look of passion washing over his face.

_Who knew Casey could dance like THAT?_ Chuck thought, brushing aside the irrelevant thought. "You don't have to wear that dress tonight!"

Exactly the argument Chuck had presented with Sarah before she had left. Why, why, WHY did she have to throw herself at Bryce?!

"ROXANNE!" Casey flipped Ellie back to Morgan, who spun her around and sent her back to Casey's arms. "You don't have to sell your body to the night!"

Casey lifted Ellie by the waist and spun around in a circle, as Chuck stood from his chair and began to pace. The orchestra dropped, except for two cellos and a lone violinist.

"His eyes, upon your face," Chuck whispered, his voice growing minutely louder with each syllable. "His hand upon your hand!"

The violin crescendoed upwards and climbed as Chuck's voice grew louder. "His lips… CARESS YOUR SKIN…"

Ellie, caught in the middle of the floor between the three men, looked at each in turn. "It's more than I can stand!"

The orchestra swelled and built back into the song as Devin turned back toward Ellie. "ROXANNE!" he called out, as Chuck sang of his heartbreak. "Why does my heart cry?"

"ROXANNE!"

"Feelings I can't fight!" Ellie had returned to Devin, Casey and Morgan had each grabbed a partner from among the company, and indeed, the entire company of _Spectacular Spectacular!_ had taken to the floor of the Moulin Rouge.

Chuck's voice broke as his anguish poured out. "You're free to leave me, but just DON'T DECEIVE ME! But please, believe me when I say… I love you!"

His voice left him, as his breath caught in his throat. Morgan fell to his knees at Ellie's feet.

"¿Yo que te quiero tanto, que le voy a hacer?" Chuck's friend asked Chuck's sister, as Chuck stepped outside, looking upward toward Bryce's apartment. "Me dejaste, ¡me dejaste en un tango! El alma se me fue. ¡Se me fue hasta la sombra!"

Devin stepped between them, dragging Ellie away. "¡Roxanne!" Morgan wailed, acting the part perfectly. "¡Ya no tengo ganas de vivir porque no te puedo convencer que no te vendas Roxanne!"

Chuck's shoulders hunched, and he forcibly breathed out, his breaths growing deeper and deeper, the lines in his forehead etching themselves with fury.

"ROXANNE!" screamed Devin.

"Why does my heart cry?!" Chuck sobbed, while Devin entreated Ellie, "You don't have to put on that red light! ROXANNE!"

"Feelings I can't fight!" Chuck stared despondently up at Bryce's window.

"You don't have to wear that dress tonight!" Devin cried, staring Ellie directly in the eyes. Her face had become a mask of stone.

"ROXANNE!" Devin sang out, as Chuck slumped against the railing. The strings began to build to a fever pitch –

And the electric guitar and drumset added themselves to the cacophony assaulting Chuck's senses. He squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth as the noise grew louder and louder. "SARAH!" he cried. "SARAH! I LOVE YOU!"

All went black –


	7. Chuck vs the Green Fairy

- and the blackness vanished as Chuck's eyes flew open.

His clock radio played softly by his bed. "Roxanne! You don't have to put on that red light!" Sting sang out.

Chuck swept his hand across the nightstand, sending the clock flying from its surface. The plug jerked from the wall, and his lamp went crashing to the floor.

Tumbling out of his bed, Chuck stumbled to the bathroom. He flung open the toilet seat, and dropped to his knees in front of the toilet. His gorge rose, and he gagged –

It felt like an hour he lay in the bathroom, but it was in reality less than two minutes. Sarah, roused from sleep, had her own hangover, but it was overridden by her concern for Chuck.

"Hey," she said softly, sensitive of how his head probably felt, as she rested a hand on his shoulder. "Are you okay?"

Chuck looked up at her, eyes rimmed in red, face pale. "You… you're here," he whispered.

Sitting up quickly, he inhaled sharply, not quite prepared for the rapid movement. But then he wrapped his arms around Sarah's back and pulled her close against him, resting his head against her chest.

"That must've been one awful dream," she whispered.

"You have no idea."

While they showered, a thought occurred to Chuck. "Do you remember… back in June," he said, "when Morgan spiked the punch at your birthday party with LSD, and I had all those weird dreams where I was in a bunch of movies?"

"Yes…" Sarah said slowly. "Why?"

"It happened again," he replied.

After getting out of the shower, he dried and dressed quickly. He brushed his teeth for about five minutes to get the taste of vomit completely out of his mouth before letting Sarah have free rein of the bathroom.

Carefully, he walked out to the kitchen, and pulled open the refrigerator door. Yep, there was still some eggnog left in there. With rather unsteady hands, he pulled the pitcher from the refrigerator, and poured a small amount into a plastic water bottle.

Grabbing his aviator sunglasses off the kitchen counter, he put them on his face as soon as he was out the door – even though he was only going across the courtyard. He stumbled to John Casey's door, and banged his fist against it.

"CASEY!" he yelled. "CASEY! Wake up!"

It took about five minutes, but finally, Casey's door was jerked open. Chuck was treated to a rather disturbing sight.

Casey, unshaven, hair wild, in boxers and a bathrobe. Gun in hand, but not aimed at anything. Eyes glazed over. "Wha the FUCK you want, Bowski?!" he slurred.

Chuck couldn't help but laugh – and then he wished he hadn't, as it made his head feel like it was going to split. "Looks like it got you this time, too," he told Casey.

"Wha?!"

"You remember, back in June, everybody got drugged, except you? Well, merry fuckin' Christmas, John Casey, you got hit this time as well."

Casey's eyes widened. "Gimme moment."

The door closed. Casey was gone for about three minutes, and then the door reopened. He had magically made himself look more human and had a glass of a rather disgusting looking concoction in his hand.

"Casey, what the hell is that?"

"NSA approved hangover cure, Bartowski. Want some?"

Chuck was unsure of the look of what was in the glass, but hell, if it was NSA approved, he might as well give it a shot. "Hook me up," he said.

Casey turned back to his kitchen, Chuck following him into the apartment. Casey poured him a glass of the hangover cure, which he handed to Chuck. Chuck looked at it suspiciously, then took a whiff. The scent of Tabasco was overwhelming.

"Can I assume that that's the offending drink this time?" Casey inquired, pointing at the bottle in Chuck's hand.

Chuck nodded, handing over the bottle. As Casey uncorked the cap, Chuck held his nose and took a small drink of the hangover cure. It burned all the way down.

"Gotta slam it, Bartowski," Casey said. "Don't be a pansy."

He poured a little of the eggnog into a test tube, which he then placed in some sort of analysis device. As he did that, Chuck closed his eyes and drank the rest of the glass.

He nearly coughed up a lung, but as he coughed, he realized that he was feeling a lot better. By the time he finished coughing, Casey's analysis was done.

"Well, that answers that," the NSA agent said, looking at the screen. "Turns out that somebody slipped Absinthe – and I'm talkin' the REAL stuff here, not the fake American stuff – into the eggnog."

Chuck laughed at the irony in that against his last dream. "You dream about movies again, Bartowski?" Casey asked.

"Yeah," Chuck replied. "_Christmas Carol_, _Superman Returns_, _Star Trek 4_, _Ocean's Eleven_, _Office Space_, and _Moulin Rouge_."

Casey started to chuckle. "You got wasted on Absinthe and had a dream about the Moulin Rouge?"

"Yeah, I thought that was pretty ironic," Chuck said.

He was headed back to the apartment with a bottle full of the hangover stuff for Sarah when his phone rang. He pulled it out – it was the Buy More calling.

"Oh, hell," he muttered. "What happened?"

He pressed the call button. "Hello?"

"BARTOWSKI!"

Chuck held the phone away from his ear as Big Mike's voice scorched out of it. "YOU GOT SOME EXPLAININ' TO DO, BOY!"

"Big Mike, what's going on?"

"The wall is currently occupied by a video of your girlfriend and your sister doing a little striptease to the tune of 'Santa Baby', that's what! It's Christmas Eve, Bartowski! I got families in here! They can't be –"

Chuck cut him off, hanging up the phone. He turned around and ran back into Casey's apartment.

"Casey," he said breathlessly. "I need the surveillance footage for –"

"This?" Casey asked, pointing at the screen.

Chuck turned to look at the screen – and there, yes indeed, were Sarah and Ellie, dressed in lingerie, dancing in the living room on the soundless video. And THERE were Jeff and Lester behind a video camera – with an empty Absinthe bottle in Jeff's hand.

"SON OF A BITCH!" Chuck shouted. He stormed back out of the apartment, and made a beeline for the Herder. Sarah saw him out the window, and she scrambled out the Morgan Door, racing across the courtyard to catch up with him.

"Where are you going?" she asked breathlessly, climbing into the passenger seat of the Herder.

Chuck put the Toyota in gear, laying rubber in the street. "Here," he said, handing her the water bottle. "Casey's NSA approved hangover cure."

Sarah raised an eyebrow, but chugged it. "Wow," she said between coughs. "I actually feel a lot better now."

"Yeah, well, you're gonna wish you hadn't run out to catch me when we reach the Buy More," Chuck warned her.

"Why?" Sarah asked, a dangerous tone below her voice.

Chuck sighed. "Apparently, one of my employees decided it would be a good idea to slip some Absinthe into the eggnog, and then that employee and another employee decided it would be fun to tape the ensuing chaos."

"Chuck…" Sarah replied, a warning sounding in her voice.

"You and Ellie did a striptease to 'Santa Baby'," Chuck sighed. "It's apparently currently showing on every screen at the Buy More."

Sarah went completely stiff, her eyes fixed on the road ahead. Then, slowly and deliberately, she reached behind her back, withdrew her gun from her waistband, and popped the clip out. She pulled back the slide, and let the chambered round fall out. Rolling down the window, she tossed both out onto the I-5 freeway.

Chuck looked over at her. "And that was…"

"That was so I don't shoot Jeff and Lester when we get to the Buy More," Sarah replied, biting each word off in anger.

Then she sighed. "Although, I suppose if nothing else, I can take consolation in the fact that it must've been hot."

Chuck smiled. "Oh, it definitely was."

* * *

_And I'm gonna end it there, because I really can't think of where else to go with it! Thanks for reading, and I hope you had fun with the crackiness!_


End file.
